I just received an email today that Stephen Few’s new book, Now You See It: Simple Visualization Techniques for Quantitative Analysis, is finally shipping. I cannot wait to read it. So in honor of his new book, I wanted to review some of the excellent advice contained in his first book, Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten.

The primary objective of visual design is to present content to your readers in a manner that highlights what’s important, arranges it for clarity, and leads them through it in the sequence that tells the story best.

He makes several recommendations:

1. Highlight the Data
   • Reduce the non-data ink
     • Subtract unnecessary non-data ink
     • De-emphasize and regularize the remaining non-data ink
   • Enhance the data ink
     • Subtract unnecessary data ink
     • Emphasize the remaining data ink
2. Organize the Data
   • Group the data
   • Prioritize the data
   • Sequence the data

Data ink, first coined by Edward Tufte, is the necessary and non-redundant ink on a graphic that relates to the core message of the display.

An example is useful:

The idea is that elements that are not related to the data draws away attention. The graph on the right replaces the bluish background with a lighter grey. The grids are replaced with tick marks, which are placed so as not to obscure the data. The actual frame is also removed. All that said the graph on the left is not half as distracting as many business visuals you see.

In any event more on this topic coming in the next few days.

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